Forbidden Dreams
by Kitkatlaugh
Summary: When 23 year old Kat is attacked by a hellhound, she accepts the simple fact that something is after her. It would have gotten her too, if it weren't for the two boys that happened to find her in the woods. Now, she repays them by helping them along the way saving people, hunting things, and you know, the family business. Is that the only reason she's staying though?
1. Prologue

Prologue

Sam and Dean treaded through the woods searching for the source of the signal that their EMF detector had been picking up for the last half hour. That time had basically been filled with more than a dozen silly arguments on music preference and five minute periods of silent shunning before the cycle repeated.

"You think it's busted?" Sam called out, walking toward a tree to rest.

Before Dean could reply, an ear-piercing scream cut through the trees ahead of them. The two boys raced toward the sound, tearing through the thorns and branches of the forest as another pained cry sounded from up ahead. Dean reached the source first, gazing in terror as a young woman struggled on the ground, seemingly pinned by an invisible force. Something was tearing through her flesh and pools of blood had formed around her. Dean had a good idea of what that invisible force was, and he wasn't too happy about it either. Sam soon reached the scene and took action by lunging at where he correctly assumed the beast was, pushing it off of the wounded girl and managing to wrestle it to the ground. Dean immediately knelt next to the broken figure of the girl, applying pressure to her wounds as her blood-loss forced her into unconsciousness.

Meanwhile, Sam had managed to take the beast's attention from the wounded woman, and he now took out his gun, blowing a hole through the invisible monster without hesitation. Salt rock, it would at least injure the monster if it was a Hellhound like both the brothers theorized. By now, Dean had shaken himself from his quite rational fear, and by instinct, he grabbed the nearest sharp object that he could find, hoping to help kill this thing. He lunged at the supposed Hellhound and viciously stabbed it. Almost immediately, it stopped struggling and grew silent.

They had killed a Hellhound? How? Neither man even thought about this as they rushed back to the wounded woman. She was the most important thing now, she was the priority. Sam stood beside Dean and glanced at the young woman lying in front of them. She was wearing bloody, torn up clothes and she looked like she was in her mid-twenties. Her chocolate brown hair was matted to her head in sticky, crimson patches and her stomach and leg were bleeding profusely. She also seemed to be bleeding from a small wound on her shoulder.

"Is she..," Dean started worriedly, glancing at his brother.

"Dead? No, but barely alive," Sam muttered after checking the girl's wrist and finding a "there-but-faint" pulse.

He scooped her up with ease and headed back the way that the two brothers had come, more careful to avoid obstacles now that they were in less of a mad rush.

"She needs a hospital," Sam stated firmly, his eyes hiding the worry that had begun to creep into his mind. Had they gotten there sooner they might have been able to save her. What if she died now? It would just be another weight on their shoulders, and after causing the apocalypse that was all they needed.

"Hey, Sammy? That might not be the best idea."

Sam turned around to find Dean holding up some stuff from the duffel bag that the woman had been carrying for him to see. He held three short silver daggers, two sawed-off shotguns, a couple of pistols, some small satchels, and what appeared to be an angel blade that he had retrieved before they had left the scene.

"This isn't just some ordinary girl," Dean said, suppressing the shock that rose into his words with ease due to practice. "I think we've found ourselves a hunter."


	2. Chapter 1

Ch 1 Kat's POV

My eyes flew open as I felt a sudden burning sensation shooting from my leg. I quickly jerked away from the two blurry figures standing beside me, trying to ignore the pain from my wounds as my eyes adjusted to the bright light. Was I in a hospital? That wouldn't be good, especially if they had gone through her bag and found her weapons and stash of fake IDs. Was she wanted for crime at the time? She really couldn't keep track of that stuff unless it was like the FBI's "20 Most Wanted". Then it became a pretty big deal.

I scanned my surroundings instinctively and concluded that I was in some sort of motel room with two young men. They were both fairly handsome and looked to be in their late twenties, a bit older than me. The taller one had shaggy brown hair, was built like a tree, and wore a slightly concerned expression. He was also holding a bottle of rubbing alcohol, which I assumed had been the cause of the burning in my leg.

The other guy had short brown hair and these amazingly attractive jade eyes. His posture and style said "tough guy", but I could tell there was also something more. Through his eyes he looked like a soldier, like he had lost something extremely important and was intent of getting it back. He had seen loss, grief, death, destruction, and all other sorts of suffering. He looked broken, yet he seemed to maintain his inspirational qualities just through his physical appearance. Yeah, sexy over there was definitely a first born, and I knew that one from experience.

I shook off these funny thoughts and tried to focus. Last I remembered, I was on the verge of death in the middle of the woods, being mauled by a giant demonic dog. Unless these men were shape-shifting demons in disguise, they had most likely saved my life, and if that was the case, I owed them big time. If you know me at all, you know that I don't like to owe anyone anything, ever. So what was I going to do now? If these men were allies and not some insane force out to get me, they would probably want to know why they had found me bleeding to death in the middle of the woods, and I really didn't want to have to tell them. I had dragged enough innocent people into my tragic lifestyle of hunting. I didn't need to hurt anyone else like that, and I definitely didn't need any of their help. I had taken care of myself for the past four years and I didn't plan on relying on anyone anytime soon.

On the other hand, if these men _were_ demons, they would probably send me to hell to be tortured. Might I add that they'd do that _after_ they'd killed me in the most painful and gruesome way that they could imagine, and trust me, demons have a very broad imagination!

I decided not to risk taking either chance, and I bolted out of the bed and toward the door, reluctantly letting out a strained whimper from the surprising amount of pain that my wounds were causing.

"We're not gonna hurt you," I heard one of the men call while attempting to grab my wrist to stop me from leaving.

Was this movement supposed to be hostile? I didn't even consider the alternative. I spun around, grabbing the man by his hand and pulling it behind his back so that he was restrained. He had a little more than a foot on me because of my below-average height, but I still held the advantage here.

Then it hit me, the second man was nowhere in sight. As soon as those thoughts passed through my head, I felt the cold metal of a gun press up against my neck, and I froze. Sure, the gun might not be loaded, but I was smart enough not to take that chance. I mentally scolded myself for my foolishness, they were a pair and I had to keep my eyes on both of them, like when hunting vetalas.

"Let him go," I heard the man with the gun say.

I firmly, but gently released the arm that I was gripping onto, slowly raised my arms in surrender, and hesitantly spoke. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"My name is Dean and this is my brother Sam," he said, gesturing with his head to the man that I had released. "We only want to help you."

Dean's POV

I cautiously held my gun to the girl's neck, the silver shining bright against her porcelain skin.

"Well, Dean," she started, pausing to carefully choose her words. "Why should I trust you and your brother?"

Luckily and as always, Sam cut in as I was about to answer her with how we saved her ass and the least she could do in return was trust us.

"You have no reason to trust us, but you could at least give us a chance. I mean, we did save you from getting mauled to death," he said, looking at the girl pleadingly. How did he pull off those puppy eyes? I had sat in front of the motel mirror one day while Sam was out, trying to perfect my own innocent face, but it just made me feel like a complete dweeb. Yeah, I had never tried that again.

"Fine," she mumbled. "Do you have my stuff?"

I gratefully, but still cautiously pulled my gun from her neck and put it back into my jacket. Now that I could see her clearly, she actually looked a bit attractive. Her chocolate eyes had a hard, but caring look to them. They added a sort or mysterious gleam to her, as if she had many dark and hidden secrets. She reminded me of the some badass fairytale princess that you did not want to mess with. Hell, forget about "a bit attractive", this girl was hot.

I walked over to the corner of the room and retrieved the bag that we had found the girl's stuff in. I handed it to her and she eagerly took it from me, mumbling a quick "thanks" and starting to lie out the objects on the floor.

"So, what's your name?" I asked the girl. She glanced up at me, looking slightly annoyed that I had interrupted her.

"Call me Kat."


	3. Chapter 2

Ch 2 Kat's POV

I turned back toward my weapons and selected my favorite knife, carefully tracing one of the edges with my callused fingers before sighing and setting it down.

"So, Kat," Sam started, trying to break the ice that had been building up as the minutes of awkward silence passed. "Where did you get your Angel Blade?"

I looked at him with a confused eyebrow quirked, not quite sure what he was talking about. Inferring that he was referring to my knife, my mind started to race. My eyes widened as I looked over the two boys once more. I instantly noticed that both of them were armed with various knives and guns, hidden so that they were nearly invisible to the everyday eye, but easy to find if you were looking for the right things. Surely, if my assumptions were correct, they would have more weapons that I couldn't see, but I really didn't care. All that my mind could process was the fact that these two men could be and were likely to be hunters. They shared my cold and lonely life.

I finally managed to form words, slowly and steadily answering Sam's question. "I dunno what an 'angel blade' is, but I got this from my mother," I said, holding up my knife.

"And, your mom? Where is she? Do you have family that you can contact?" he asked hesitantly, as if he knew that this was a touchy subject. If he _was_ a hunter, then he probably did know to some extent.

"My mother, brother, and step-father were killed when I was twelve. It was a rugaru," I started. If they were hunters, they'd know what I was talking about, if not I'd sound like a complete lunatic. I hoped for the former in a bittersweet kind of way. "I hid in the closet until it was gone. My mother had briefly told me about what to do in a situation like this, so, ignoring the dismembered figures that had been my parents, I managed to reach the phone-book. Mom had left a list of emergency contacts and I called the first on the list. She was a nice woman, lost contact with her about a year ago…" I started drifting into nostalgia with the memories flooding back. Pulling myself back into the present, I debated on whether or not to continue. Reaching the conclusion "what the hell", I started back up. Something inside of me told me it was about time I spilt my story to someone instead of keeping it locked inside the depths of my twisted mind anyway. Sam seemed like a person who was easy enough to talk to. "Anyway, she actually took the time to drive up to my house in Colorado. She obviously had some experience in the area, because she brought a shotgun and some other strange supplies with her. She called someone and told him or her about the rugaru, cleaned up the blood in my house, and offered to take me in. She had said that she had a daughter about my age who would enjoy the company and that she could teach me how to protect myself. I really had nowhere else to go, so I happily accepted her offer, but not before remembering my box. You see, when I was about ten, my mother had given me a small wooden box. She had told me that it would protect me and that I should never open it unless I absolutely had to. I ran upstairs and took the box out from under my bed. It was a beautiful box, plain old wood with strange little symbols carved into it. It wasn't English, and sometimes I would just lie in my room trying to decode what it said. I never got very far with that, but sometimes I thought that I could make out some of the words," I stopped abruptly, realizing that I had been rambling. "Sorry, I'm probably boring you."

"No, no!" Sam exclaimed. "Keep going!"

I smiled and nodded my head with thanks. "Ok, anyway, I took my box, and Ellen and I drove off to her roadhouse."

"Whoa, wait!" Dean cut in, revealing that he had, in fact, been listening the entire time instead of reading the sports magazine in his lap. "What was her name?"

"Ellen," I questioningly confirmed.

"Ellen? Ellen Harvelle?" Sam inquired, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, how do you know her?" I asked anxiously. If these boys knew Ellen, maybe they knew where she and Jo had been since I had last seen them. It would be nice to get back in touch.

"We were good friends with her and Jo," Dean stated.

"Well, do you know where they've been? What they've been up to?"

Sam's face grew solemn and he looked at me with these big, sad eyes. "Kat, Ellen and Jo passed away in a hunting accident last year."

I felt utterly sick. Ellen and Jo, the only people who had actually cared for me since my parents' death, were dead themselves. My best friend and the woman that had basically raised me to be who I am, I had come to see them as my sister and my mother, but now they were dead. Just like that, wiped from this plane of existence and into another land of the unknown. I couldn't cry though. I hadn't cried since that first rugaru, and I wasn't going to start now. I just had to swallow the pain, however hard it might be, and maybe add another layer to my nearly indestructible walls.

"Kat, we're so sorry," Sam began slowly, as if he was scared to break my mental shell. No, he underestimated me, my shell was a lot harder than it looked.

"I'm fine, how did it happen though?"

"They sacrificed themselves. It was a bomb," he replied.

Luckily, the boys seemed to sense that this wasn't what I wanted to talk about, and they changed the subject. "So, what was in the box?" Dean asked.

I silently thanked him before returning to my life story. "In the box, I found a necklace and this knife," I said, holding it up. "Ellen trained Jo and me in hunting and I lived with them until a few years back. Ellen and I had a falling out and I left. I hadn't heard from or of them until now. At least I know what happened to them…" I trailed off. There was an awkward silence for a couple of minutes where both boys either didn't know what to say or just didn't say anything because they were uncomfortable. I was sort glad they knew how I felt and they knew not to push or pry.

Finally, Dean broke the silence with a curious question. "You know that 'knife' you have is an angel blade, right?" he asked, using little finger quotations. It was kind of funny to see such a cute little action coming from a leather jacket wearing hunter.

"What's an angel blade?" I asked. I had never even heard of an angel blade, and angels only a few times. I knew that they existed in mythology, but Ellen and Jo had never said anything about them actually existing. Maybe it had nothing to do with angels anyway? I doubted that last thought though.

"Angel blades are special weapons possessed by angels. They're one of the few things that can actually kill an angel. Any idea where your mom may have gotten one?" Sam asked.

Ok, so maybe there were angels, but why the heck would my mom have an "angel blade"? I was just as confused as the two hunters standing before me. "No idea. I hadn't even known that angels existed until a few seconds ago, so I'm no expert in this area."

"Huh," Dean cut back in. "Well, I'm gonna go call Cas to ask him what he thinks about this whole thing. Keep Kat inside," he said to Sam. Addressing me this time, he spoke again. "Sit down and relax, you're injured and you're safe with us. Live in the moment!"

Dean's POV

Gravity shut the motel room door after me as I left the room. This was definitely not an average day, but my life had never been really anything even close to average, so it was kind of expected. "Cas, we need your help," I began, awkwardly shouting to the sky. As often as I did this, it never did start to feel remotely normal. Plus the occasional motel guest passing by me as I yelled into the air never helped. "Sam and I found this strange girl. She knew Jo and Ellen, plus she has an angel blade and I'm pretty sure she's not an angel. We really don't know what to make of this!" I turned around expecting to see the angel, but like normally, he wasn't standing there. "Cas? You there?" I asked again.

The faint sound of wings and a deep voice answered my question. "I'm here, Dean. Where's the girl?" Cutting right to the chase, as always.

"She's inside, but I don't think you should just-" I started. We hadn't prepared Kat for anything like meeting an angel, and our friendly neighborhood one wasn't always gentle and kind, especially with questioning. Cas didn't seem to care what we thought though, as he vanished before I could finish my sentence. How would Kat react when a strange and awkward angel in a trench coat shows up asking random questions? She had just learned that angels exist, not to mention she had just found out that her only friends and closest things to family were dead. I guess we'd just have to see how this went. It's not like it could be that bad, right?


	4. Chapter 3

Ch 3 Kat's POV

It had only been a few minutes since Dean had gone outside, and Sam had tried to explain to me whom "Cas" was. So far, I knew that he was a strange angel who wore a trench coat and was currently leading a civil war against another angel named Raphael in heaven, which also happened to exist. My head was spinning and I really just needed a break from all of this nonsense. I'm sure that made it the perfect time for someone to randomly appear out of thin air accompanied by the faint sound of wings. He wore a trench coat and had just appeared out of no where, so I had assumed he was Castiel.

Sam was the first to speak. "Cas, why the heck are you in here? I thought that you were talking to Dean! Outside!" he added emphasis to that last word.

The angel's voice was unusually gravelly, like really strangely gruff. "I felt I needed to see the girl that he spoke of." The angel then gestured toward me. "Is this her?" he asked.

I think that anyone in my position would be a bit alarmed by now, and I definitely was. Dean slowly walked through the door, looking a bit like the world may end at any moment.

"Yeah, this is Kat," Sam confirmed uneasily.

Cas quickly approached me and bent over so that we were eye to eye. He squinted at me critically and tilted his head to the side before returning to his normal height. "I am Castiel, the angel that Sam and Dean spoke of. Katherine, Dean has told me that you possess an angel blade. May I see it?"

This man seemed interesting. He spoke strangely, and seemed… beautifully terrifying. I don't know why, but that was the only thing that could really describe him. Castiel was just beautifully terrifying, transfixing, hypnotic.

Then, as if everything else had vanished, I saw the light. Dean, Sam, Castiel, the motel room, they had all gone and a light had replaced them. I couldn't see anything but the light. I couldn't even hear anymore. I couldn't hear anything except for a faint humming, but I couldn't even concentrate on that over the light. It was just.. beautiful. I found myself staring, gazing, just watching the light, the transfixing glow.

It was beautiful, but it was absolutely terrifying. It was beautifully terrifying. Why did those words feel so familiar? Why did the nobility and purity of the light remind me of a figure just beyond reach? Then it hit me, this light _was_ Castiel. It was the same being in a different form. Not wrong though, just more clear. More fitting and angelic as I found he should be.

Before I could see anything else, I was yanked back to reality, but this time, I was sitting down. Cas was sitting in another chair in front of me, two of his fingers placed on my forehead. I still couldn't hear. I felt groggy and light-headed. I shut my eyes again and thankfully started to hear some things.

"Kat?"

"Katherine, can you hear me?"

"What happened?"

"I told you, I don't know. I'm sorry."

"What the hell is going on?!"

Voices bounced around the room. They were muffled and distant, as if I was dreaming. I couldn't identify them, but I knew that something was wrong. Something had happened and they couldn't figure out why. The voices started to become clearer, as if I was actually in the room with them. I could also identify them now.

"She's waking up," Cas announced slowly.

I opened my eyes once again and I was back in the motel room. I blinked a few times and rubbed my head. "What the hell just happened?" I asked groggily.

As always, Sam was the one to explain it to me. He seemed like the "explainer" now. The role fit him well, now that I thought about it. "You passed out. We don't know why, but we're trying to figure it out. Cas says it wasn't your wounds. On the plus side, he healed those while you were out."

I stretched my leg out, and to my amazement, it felt fine. That definitely was a plus!

"What do you remember?" Castiel's voice broke me out of my moment again. Funny thing was, I couldn't remember much, if anything. There was only the light.

"There was a light, a bright, pure, white light. How long was I out?" I asked, trying to change the subject. I didn't really know why, but talking about the light made me a bit uncomfortable. Honestly I was a bit self-conscious about the whole thing. Sure, hunters could experience some crazy crap, but I sounded absolutely batshit crazy.

Dean seemed to sense this and he took the opportunity to help. "You were out for about an hour. While you were out, we showed Cas your angel blade, hope you don't mind. He's drawing a blank on that too, sorry.

Luckily Cas seemed to catch on and left the topic of the light in the past. "You see," he started, pulling another so called "angel blade" out of his coat, "each angel has an angel blade. They've had them since creation and no one knows where they got them. I can't remember receiving mine and no one else can remember receiving theirs. However, each angel only gets one blade. It's unique to them and possesses a sort of unique energy. Every now and then, an angel blade gets stolen. Although stolen angel blades still possess the same abilities as they had when the angels had them, they don't have the same energy. I checked the energy in your blade, and it still has its energy, which would mean the angel who owns it is currently in possession of it. You're the only one in possession of it, but I've confirmed that you aren't and never have been an angel. Your blade doesn't contain much energy, but it's still there to the point that I can sense it. I don't know how or why, but this is an angel blade, and as far as I can tell, it's _your_ angel blade." He handed me the knife sitting beside him and put his back into his coat.

I carefully accepted it, turning it over in my hands. What did this entire thing mean? Why did I have an angel blade? What exactly was going on?

Dean's POV

Kat just sat there, examining the angel blade, so I decided to reflect back to when she had been out. It had been terrifying, she was conscious one moment and out the next. After checking her vital signs and not finding an answer to what had happened, Cas put on his thinking face. It was that face where he had come to a conclusion, but pretended to have no idea what was going on. After a while Sam and I had just learned to roll with it, however frustrating and annoying it was.

When Sam had asked him what he was thinking about he had just replied with "You need to keep her with you until I figure this out."

It was Cas, so we had decided not to argue or protest. It seemed reasonable, so far Kat seemed like a nice girl and she knew at least the basics of self-defense and hunting if her back story was legitimate. I wondered how good a hunter she really was. After that, Sam and I had just searched the web for hunts in the area and Cas had sat watching Kat until she started waking up.

That was when things had gotten weird with all of the angel mumbo-jumbo talk. Kat was definitely a peculiar girl, but add an angel blade and strange white lights to the equation and you got someone that you didn't really want to end up on the bad side of. So was she a threat?

"If you're an angel, why are you on Earth? Why not on heaven?" Kat asked curiously. Oh gosh, more angel talk here we come.

"I was called down to tend to an… urgent matter. The angels are at civil war, I am there when I can be," the angel gruffly responded.

"Where's Michael? There should be structure in heaven, not civil war. This is wrong," she replied, exasperation evident in her voice.

"You are correct, this shouldn't have happened. After the apocalypse last year, Michael was locked in Hell with Lucifer. Raphael is trying to take control of Heaven now."

"Whoa whoa, wait," I cut in. How had neither Sam nor Cas noticed this? I turned and directed my attention toward Kat. "How do you know about Michael? How do you know how heaven _should_ be?"

Sam seemed to catch on to my train of thought and he furrowed his brow. Cas, however, just stood there, clueless.

"Anyone raised in hunting should know at least something about Michael," Kat stated defensively.

"What about heaven?" Sam asked.

"I don't know, it just isn't right! You know when you're just walking along one day, minding your own business when you get this feeling like everything just took a turn off the tracks?"

Sam, Cas, and I all replied to this in unison, Sam and I with "No?" and Cas with a monotonous "Yes."

I turned to ask the angel what he meant by "Yes", but he was already gone.

"The angel has exited the building," I proclaimed. Sam just raised him eyebrows with that look that said "really?"

"So, what's the plan now?" Kat asked innocently. She seemed sweet, but I was suspicious. She knew an awful lot about what was going on around here. Sam and I exchanged glances confirming that we were thinking along the same lines.

Cas hadn't mentioned any danger and had seemed like he had trusted her though. Actually, that was probably the longest conversation that I had ever experienced Castiel having. That socially awkward side of his had just somewhat faded and he spoke to Kat with a certain level of comfort and authority that he didn't normally show, at least around us. They would have to trust her for now, they couldn't just watch her suspiciously until Cas got back, which could be for who knows how long. Days? Months?


	5. Chapter 4

Ch 4 Kat's POV

"So, were you just in the area, or were you on a hunt, because we're looking for one and any help would be gladly welcomed," Sam asked. Finally, something normal!

"Yeah, I was actually looking into what I think might be one when you guys found me," I eagerly replied. I grabbed Sam's computer and pulled up a few articles that I had been researching earlier. "Ok, here's what I've got so far."

I flipped the computer around and showed the boys a few newspaper clippings. The first said "**Third Woman to Die in Sleep of Unknown Cause**" another was labelled "**Random SUNDS Breakout**".

"SUNDS, or Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome, has been occurring since the early 1900s. It's very rare and it's linked to sleep paralysis. Basically, it kills you while you sleep and nobody knows how. There've been at least a dozen fatalities reported in Madison County, about fifteen miles away. If that's not weird, then I don't know what is," I stated. There had been a few options to look into, but this one had piqued my interest just because of how absurd and rare it was.

"So, what are we looking at? Some angry spirit that kills you in your sleep?" Dean asked curiously. Apparently he hadn't run into something quite similar even with all of his experience.

"Have you guys seriously never come across anything like this?" Both boys looked at me blankly and I stifled a laugh. "It's most likely a Bangungot," I replied, pulling up some lore on the laptop.

"Oh yeah!" Sam started. "These were in Dad's journal, they're these fat monsters that take the appearance of hags and sit on peoples' chests while they sleep until they suffocate."

Dean coughed into his sleeve something that sounded suspiciously like 'geek'. I just grinned. At least someone knew his stuff! It would be weird not being the only intellectual one around though. I had always been more into the research and lore than Jo, reading the books in my free time, so I had tended to be more informed on it all than her.

"I'm gonna see if I can learn anything else from the lore. One of you guys should go get food," I droned, my only focus on the work ahead. "I'm hungry."

The two nodded in agreement and Dean grabbed his keys. "Chinese?" he asked, raising his eyebrows for approval.

I nodded and gave him two thumbs up. "Sounds good, Deano! Nope, never calling you that again. You need a nickname though.."

Dean just sighed and shut the door. I turned to Sam. "Does he have any strange nicknames?" He really did need one, it was kind of my thing to give people annoying nicknames, just one of my habits.

"Well, he _does _call himself Batman," announced the younger Winchester. He had to be joking, right?

Well, it didn't really matter. I smirked mischievously before trying the name. "Batman… Yup that'll work until I find something better!" I then started the labor-full task of researching. Eventually I came across a few decently legitimate articles on Bangungots and even one or two on how to possibly kill them. Apparently, they were vulnerable to iron and steel, but you couldn't kill them unless they were in their human form. Yeah, shape-changers. "_Yippee, those are always fun!" _I thought sarcastically. Sam had also been talking on the phone to some guy named Bobby for quite some time now, so hopefully he had gained progress as well.

After about an hour the motel door opened to Dean and the food. Finally!

"Hey, Batman, I'm hungry and we need help! Where the hell have you been?" I demanded playfully. He only raised his arms in surrender and set down the food, not seeming to have acknowledged the nickname. Sam and I decided not to ask any further questions and we all grabbed some spring-roles and a beer from the miniature fridge.

It wasn't as if I would be getting drunk anytime soon anyway, so I really had nothing to worry about. While I lived at the roadhouse, I had discovered my abnormally high tolerance to alcohol. At certain times, it could be awesome to barely ever get drunk, but the part that sucked was how hard it _was_ to get drunk. Sometimes people just needed that break from real life, even hunters! What I had was a gift and a curse.

I downed a sip and took a bite of the food before returning to my research.

"So, have you guys found anything?" Dean asked inquisitively.

"Yeah," I declared before Sam got the chance to start. "According to lore, these things are vulnerable to iron and steel, but you can't actually kill them unless they're in human form."

"So, they can change shape?" Dean questioned.

This time, Sam cut in before I had the chance. It was kind of funny the way we intellectually competing, even if we hadn't said anything about it. It was a sort of silly game we were playing, who knew most about the case. "Apparently they can change to be dogs, cats, pigs, snakes, butterflies, and humans."

"Oh, isn't that wonderful!" Dean proclaimed sarcastically, much like I had thought before. "So what, do we interrogate every dog in the county?"

"It looks like the easiest way to get this thing would be to injure it while it's in its true form and find a human with the same injuries. Hopefully it's not just picking random targets and we'll be able to find a link between the victims," I replied

"So, what do we know about the victims?" Sam asked.

"So far there've been thirteen, I'm surprised no one got to this case sooner considering it is a bit out of the norm. They were all females, mid-twenties. The attacks seem to occur every two or three days apart, the last one being yesterday. Her name was Claire Nolan and she was only twenty-two. She didn't live far from here, so one of us could check out her flatmate tomorrow while the other two check with the coroner and take a peek at the body," I announced.

This was fun, hunting with someone else. Sure, I'd hunted with Jo and Ellen many times in the past, but it had been a while. I'd basically hunted solo for the past year, and being with people again was refreshing. Plus, it had been a bit awkward posing as a government agent without a partner.

Dean's POV

This could actually be interesting. New encounters were always memorable and hunting with this new chick didn't seem like too bad of an idea, especially if they had to babysit her for Cas's sake. She obviously knew what she was doing, but that would be expected because Ellen had raised her. The Harvelles and the two brothers had been close though, so I wondered why neither of them had ever said anything about Kat. She hadn't been around the roadhouse whenever they had passed by either. Had she known Ash? If she had she probably didn't know of his passing away either. I wouldn't tell her today though. Sam and I knew how it was to lose the ones we loved, and if Jo and Kat's relationship was anything like Sammy and mine's I would be devastated. How she was holding up was more than impressive, but I didn't want to push at anything around those walls of hers. Something told me I wouldn't be able to dent them even if it was my intention though.

"Ok, bedtime kiddos! We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow!" I said. Sam just rolled his eyes. Why did no one appreciate my sense of humor? Then, I noticed a problem; there were only two beds. When we had checked in it had only been Sam and me, two people and two beds. Well, this would be interesting.

"Hehe, guys, who wants to sleep with me?" I grinned cheekily at my double entendre.

Sam face-palmed, but Kat seemed to see where I was coming from and showed no sign of taking it the wrong way.

"I'll sleep on the floor!" she stated. Before either Sam or I could protest, she had sprung up, grabbed some extra blankets and a pillow from the closet, and headed into the bathroom with her bag. She exited nearly 30 seconds after she had entered in a pair geeky pajamas from that oddly popular show Doctor Who. The top was white with the words "Trust me, I'm a Doctor" in royal blue and the bottoms were the same blue with little police boxes on them. How did girls manage to change that fast? As if my wondering was obvious, Kat answered simply with "practice". What the heck was that supposed to mean? Yeah, I let my mind wander with that one.

I entered after her, pulling on an undershirt and some shorts. I crawled into the motel bed and fell asleep almost immediately. There was no doubt in my mind that tomorrow would be interesting.


End file.
